Prime example of Superman Conundrum. How do you tell a story when four of your characters and the melonpan of a fifth are almost invincible?

When I watched this episode of Gundam 00, I had flashbacks. Doomsday. Knightfall. Nightmare. Sound familiar? All three arcs deal with the defeat of Superman, Batman, and Freedom respectively. All three, through time and mythos, became so overpowering, they basically crushed any storyline that was presented. How do you find a plethora of villains capable of standing up to Superman over and over again? Where do you find a stream of villains that can elude The Bat? What kind of mobile suit do you need to crush Freedom?

Superman evolved into power overwhelming. Early on, Superman could not fly, rather he could leap for long distances. Now, he can fly… and go into space. He also needed to be charged by the sun, and only our sun, as that was the source of his powers. Now? He’s just down to kryptonite as his weak point. Plots involving Lex Luthor obtaining kryptonite and using it against Superman get old. Fast. How do you jazz things up? Create a villain who did nothing in his past but specialize in killing children of Krypton, Doomsday! Hence, Superman went down.

(But thanks to a wonderful deus ex machina as well as DC’s marketing department, not out!)

Batman evolved from a dorky teenager into a cross between Leonardo DiCaprio and Donald Trump. Oh, he fought crime on the side! Despite his lack of superpowers (rare for a DC character in those days), he was able to solve every crime that came his way and take down all the criminals in Gotham. He was able to defeat villains who did have superpowers! How do you jazz things up? Create a villain who did nothing but plot out Batman’s demise much like the 2007 New England Patriots gameplanning. Bane basically created a gauntlet of lesser villains and tired Batman out before delivering the final spine-breaking blow. Hence, Batman went down.

(But thanks to a wonderful deus ex machina as well as DC’s marketing department, not out!)

Kira Yamato somehow went from dorky computer graduate student who was lucky to bang Flay to the most invincible mecha pilot this side of Simon the Digger. Not only that, he became the Katie Holmes to Lacus’ Tom Cruise. That’s a big jump. He was an one-man army. He surpassed Wilt the Stilt in his prime. He single-handedly fought two factions at once without killing everyone. “Jesus Yamato” didn’t even begin to describe his powers. How do you jazz things up besides letting Meyrin’s hair down? Create a villain who did nothing but fantasize about kicking Freedom’s ass. ZAFT applied constant pressure on Freedom, and then Shinn played lights out against Kira. It was so contrived, it made other parts of Gundam Seed Destiny seem well-written by comparison. Needless to say, Freedom went down.

(But thanks to a wonderful deus ex machina as well as Bandai’s marketing department, not out!)

See a pattern? Let’s continue.

The Gundam Meisters of 00 were just ridiculously powerful, surpassing the supposed top-of-the-line mobile suit technology of the day. The four of them sliced up entire armies, and they already took down most of the AEU’s forces in a previous battle. Their only weaknesses were: Allelujah’s breakdowns, Lockon and the embalmed head of Chris Hansen, and Setsuna. To make defeat the Meisters, Sunrise had to play the old game. They had to create an impossible scenario where (1) Celestial Being would have to be less competent than normal, much like Brady tossing 6 interceptions against the Giants’ defense and (2) the trifecta of AEU/HRL/Union must play out of their brains, much like Brandon Jacobs rushing for 200 yards against the Pat’s defense. How do you jazz things up? Follow the Doomsday, Knightfall, and Nightmare playbooks! (Which should be easy since Sunrise was responsible for Jesus Yamato.) Basically, create an impossible scenario where the heroes are taken to the brink… and broken… like a male character in Minami-ke. Watching the AEU/HRL/Union run roughshod over Celestial Being will be pretty much like seeing “New York Giants 42, New England Patriots 7” or seeing Hosaka make out with Haruka. Both very jarring. Nonetheless, Tieria, Lockon, Allelujah, and Setsuna all were defeated.

(But thanks to a wonderful deus ex machina as well as more mobile suit model sales for Bandai, not out!)

And that is the Superman Conundrum. As the heroes get more and more powerful, it becomes harder and harder to write well about them. Without resorting to cheap, gimmicky plots and deus ex machina, that is.

Points of Interest

When Sumeragi was talking about a 15 hour battle, did she mean the Gundams, or did she mean fitting into that dress? Sumeragi oscillates between “melonpanriffic” and “scary.” Definitely not scary this episode. Whew!

Poor Ms. Wang. Sumeragi has really pushed her out of the picture. Ms. Wang really needs to break out the meido or nekomimi meido outfits to win me back, I think.

When I saw Agrissa, I thought about Kevin Smith. In his Evening with Kevin Smith DVD (which I give a 14 out of 10 for anyone who enjoys his movies), he talked about working with this horrible producer who was infatuated with mecha spiders. He wanted to put mecha spiders into all of Kevin’s scripts, including the Superman movie that was never made. Eventually, Kevin got fed up and the two parted ones… and this produced went on to make… Wild Wild West… complete with giant mecha spider.

Another possible Celestial Being branch? Red GN particles? Gundam is infamous in upping the mobile suit ante. I still remember somehow in like 20 weeks, the Alliance in Gundam SEED went from piloting a bunch of mobile armor to suddenly being able to pilot mobile suits. It was like half a year before Mwu, the ace of aces, was able to pilot a mobile suit, and that’s with Kira’s modified OS. And, then suddenly, scrub pilots from the Alliance could pilot mobile suits?

(And as the suits keep getting upgraded, we run into the Jesus Yamato problem once again.)

The Meisters were so incompetent this episode, they’re making the US lending industry look like idiot savants. First of all, none of the Meisters fought or run. They just stood in one placing getting pounded. Was this Sumeragi’s grand game plan? She saw the strategy the triad were going to toss their way? I mean, she couldn’t have packed some bottled water and maybe a lunch bento for them? So far in Gundam 00, the Gundams have not just stood there. They’ve fought back, even when the HRL trapped the Potemayo in space. Back when they were intervening in Madagascar, there were long range units, but Lockon and Setsuna eventually took care of those. Out of all the Gundams, only Lockon really put up much of a fight. Setsuna, Tieria, and Allelujah were just horrible.

I still can’t get over the fact that Sumeragi knew what was going to happen, and she didn’t devise a better game plan than having Tieria fire once and then assume the fetal position for all the Gundams. I’m beginning to think she’s not the tactical genius she claims to be, and, maybe, just maybe, this is the same as watching your team coached by Norv Turner.

So, Kyrios is a mobility-type mobile suit that excels in flight form as well as in motion. So of course let’s have it huddle in a trench while using a tiny shield. This is the same kind of logic that leads to Hatenkou Yugi, Spice and Wolf, True Tears, They Are My Noble Masters, Ayakashi, Persona, H20, Sayonara Zetsubou Sensei, Gunslinger Girl, and Rosario Vampire being subbed by at least two groups a piece while Hosaka, Fujioka, and Mako-cakes gets no love.

For the love of Oyashiro-sama, please also explain why Louise and Saji are in this series at all? Louise has officially morphed into Zero no Tsukaima‘s Louise. Despite their differences the melonpan department, I can’t wait for the first “baka inu!” scream.

(And she wants matching rings to cheer her up after her mom leaves? Saji, man, it’s not worth it. No melonpan is worth what you’re potentially getting. Go hit on Christina or something, seems like a much more palatable option.)

MY HONEY!!!

Fittingly, it required an uber mecha to take out the Arbalest. And, of course, enough was salvaged to complete the Laevatein. Wouldn’t you much rather see this happen than see wooden starfish being given out?

(Of course, I think that a differentiator between Gurren Lagann and most mecha anime is that the beauty of Gurren Lagann was that even though everything was scaling up in ridiculous proportions, Simon was ultimately “defeated” by something oh so human and seemingly insignificant to an universe-crushing mecha.)

(One last note: the same basic Superman Conundrum occurred in Gundam Wing, but I’m out of time to write that out, and I already did Destiny. This episode was a lot like the final battle of Endless Waltz, except the Gundams in Endless Waltz put up a fight and were finally taken down because they ran out of energy/ammo because Wing Zero saves them.)

I have a lot of fun watching Celestial Beings get their asses kicked in this episode. Too much fun to be honest. :P

>>For the love of Oyashiro-sama, please also explain why Louise and Saji are in this series at all?

If this is a Tomino’s Gundam series, I would expected no less then Louise to meet a horrible, painful death as a result of Celestial Beings fight that drives Saji mad so that he ended up becoming a pilot to take revenges on Celestial Beings and Setsuna.

But then again, who knows? Maybe both of them will live their happy lives till the end of series with nothing bad happen to them, except some silly teen angst thing or two.

I filed Sumeragi under incompetent commanders sometime ago. Her Operational Art depends ever so much Gundam brute force rather than fluid and bold maneuvers to attack where the enemy least expects it. Heck Katie is ten times the commander that Sumeragi is simply by slapping Patrick.

I was most pleased to see that the Big Three have started using artillery, and air support to fix the Gundams in positions and prevent them from linking up. It sucks that the the meisters are going to get saved yet again by some contrived miracle. I have to say I am not liking how Gauron has gone down in his grizzledness levels by shaving, now he looks like some flat chested broad pretending to be a man.

The problem that Gundam has over issues of balance is that the Gundams always have superiority in everything except numbers. Had Sunrise developed the sense to incorporate Grand Strategy, Operational Art, unit specific tactics, combined arms, logistics, and intelligence networks where all factions are more or less equal things would probably even out across the board and make every victory that much closer to a near run thing.

Basically, create an impossible scenario where the heroes are taken to the brink… and broken… like a male character in Minami-ke. Watching the AEU/HRL/Union run roughshod over Celestial Being will be pretty much like seeing “New York Giants 42, New England Patriots 7″ or seeing Hosaka make out with Haruka. Both very jarring. Nonetheless, Tieria, Lockon, Allelujah, and Setsuna all were defeated.

(But thanks to a wonderful deus ex machina as well as more mobile suit model sales for Bandai, not out!)

What annoy me is the legion of gundam fanboys chanting its plot and politic as masterful writing. Oi, guys, this is not Frankenheimer’s “Seven Days in May”!

One of my gripes for the modern gundam is that how come there is no progress for nanotechnology (nano bomb)? Or even pillbox type, run-of-the-mill dirty bomb. Or have they tried smoldering gundams with a bomb of industrial-strength acid just to cause corrosion for an easy kill? Why would they still produced a 24++ episodes of gundam series that has no coherent plot and which doesn’t make any sense? Corporate Greed is the motto of Sunrise these days…so sad actually…^^

If you remove tactics and strategy as your main proponent in war, then you must exchange it for uber-superior weaponry that your opponent hasn’t anticipated yet. But then again, gundam has transcended this shit by creating uber-powerful mechas that goes beyond the laws of physics and reality.

Makes me think on what take will Sunrise adapt if they ever remake Gurren Lagann (oh the horror)…^^

i have officially lost faith in this series, I mean how can you have 4 god like gundams actually lose that badly, their just like Microsoft’s virus protection team, sure the look good on the job but they all have deep trauma from their past and formed multiple personalities.

And Sumeragi, what’s her deal. she obviously knew what was going to happen , did she really have NO ideas. She could have at least devised a plan that caused the gundams to move from their positions and , wait for it, attack.

This just proves that Celestial Being are not the New England Patriots. Because the NEP don’t actually need to have a strategy to kick someones ass by 40 points. Their just told ” Hey Tom you see that endzone, get to it as much as possible.”

Ok, not that I usually justify sunrise’s actions, but I have a guess as to why they might not have moved: when outnumbered this badly maybe even the Meisters finally realized that they can’t just cut up everyone around them, without leaving themselves open to the attack from a blind spot. Probably safer to put up your shield and snipe the enemy from behind it, which is what Tieria and Lockon did. I am assuming Al was too messed up in the head to do much at this point and Exia doesn’t seem like it’s designed for long range combat. The original strategy was probably for the two groups to meet up so that they could back each other up, but that didn’t work too well thanks to Al’s tendency to become useless when Soma shows up.

Then again maybe I am cutting sunrise writers too much slack … but come on, this is so much more exciting than watching the Gundams effortlessly lay waste to everyone around them!

I think CB wanted this to happen. I’m not sure Sumeragi was even supposed to get them out of this mess given her statements about “that suit.” Clearly, they could have easily left with camo or destroyed the terrorists in space with Lockon’s long-range capabilities.

Let the man have the mechanical spider. We already have a mechanical scorpion.

The Sera and Subaru Saji and Louisse subplot makes sure that the show is not just some mindlessly orgasmic “robots shooting / beating the crap out of each other” show. Do you WANT another CE-based SEED trainwreck?

So yeah. If things were really bad, then Patrick would’ve been cannon-fodder by now and Marina would’ve hit the car roof like Bhutto.

We all know that there are no Prussians (manly men) in Japan. But said machine is still running; it hadn’t really broke down as of yet.

well, it was actually fun to watch. so the negative stuff of watching too many stuff leads to loss of enjoyment of series in the future. well, I just don’t know how indestructible those gundams are but they can be destroyed right. soma’s plug suit is cute though.

Hmmm…. I don’t think the battle itself was that contrived. The Gundams were just massively overwhelmed and the meisters were slowly tired out. The contrived part is Sumeragi’s massive loss of IQ. The alcohol must be catching up to her.

I was praying that 00 would bring some logic back to Gundam, but when I saw Exia take many direct hits from linear rifles and cannon fire, I knew things were going to get ridiculous (Virtue has the excuse of all that armor). If anything, it’s probably just laziness because it is easier to animate a standing Gundam taking hits like nothing is happening versus having to animate the thing dodging all of that fire.

The Meisters were so incompetent this episode, they’re making the US lending industry look like idiot savants. First of all, none of the Meisters fought or run. They just stood in one placing getting pounded. Was this Sumeragi’s grand game plan? She saw the strategy the triad were going to toss their way? I mean, she couldn’t have packed some bottled water and maybe a lunch bento for them? So far in Gundam 00, the Gundams have not just stood there. They’ve fought back, even when the HRL trapped the Potemayo in space. Back when they were intervening in Madagascar, there were long range units, but Lockon and Setsuna eventually took care of those. Out of all the Gundams, only Lockon really put up much of a fight. Setsuna, Tieria, and Allelujah were just horrible.

1. Bring in Exia and Virtue, who have been standing by camouflaged brilliantly next to some random cliff.

2. Exia destroys any patrols that spot them, while Virtue charges the BIG pewpew lazor to cut a path for Dynames and Kyrios, hopefully bringing down that pesky battalion of Hellions raping them from behind.

3. With pressure from the rear relieved, Dynames and Kyrios can flee to the trench created by the BIG pewpew lazor.

However, if this is not done in a timely manner, resort to plan E5.

Plan E5:

1. HRL troops led by that lolilicious supersoldier are bound to show up by now. Allelujah will experience his headache problems, causing Kyrios to stall.

2. Dynames has no choice but to help defend Kyrios, and now our plans of regrouping are completely screwed.

I have no contigency plans after this really. If we get to plan E5, everyone’ll be pinned down for as much time as they can physically last, or for as long Tieria keeps telling himself that they can’t hand over the Gundams, whichever comes first.

After that they’ll send in elite pilots to finish the Meisters off, after which I can only hope for the best.

My take on it is that Sumeragi knows very well what was going on, but she had no power to do anything about it because of the chain of command further up in the ranks of Celestial Beings. The point of the battle seems to serve two purposes for the Celestial Beings. One to knock the pilots’ egos down a notch (way down), and two, to finally show the world the “original” Gundams (GN Armors) from the previous generation. In effect, giving the 3 unions the finger and go, you’ve got nothing. And for Bandai, they just want to sell more toys.

Just when logic and strategy was finally being put back into Sunrise mecha series, they had to mess it up with a psycho Chinese-Australian, turned back to the scriptwriters of Mai-HiME for help, then let loose a hell of an ironic genocide after promising us another Gundam SEED.
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Well, I’ll continue watching this soon-to-be-another trainwreck just for Rie Kugumiya, whose character hopefully won’t die off so quickly like other non-main character/good side Gundam (SEED) pilots.

(Every new gundam series that comes out these days has a great potential to become a trainwreck that it isn’t funny anymore. It’s really easy to point out its flaws and its plot holes that it somehow loses to be fun anymore and just makes any other future gundam series by default “90%, hold-out-hopes, trainwreck. 10% would be fanservice and the only thing that is worth looking into this series are their fanservice of ms sumeragi and ms wang and even then, they’re cramping out on us…bleeaaaghhhh!!!!!!!)

I would force Sunrise scripwriters sit through ALL war movies classics, “Das Boot”, “Nothing New on the Western Front”, “Platoon”, “Apocalypse Now”, “Cross of Iron”, “The Deer Hunter”, you name it, even stuff like “Killing Fields” and “Harrison’s Flowers”. Just because I am fcking tired of them trying to sell whatever war and anti-war BS as the real deal.

Then I would freaking force them to watch fictional politic fictions or thrillers like “Seven Days in May”, “State of Play”, “The Manchurian Candidate”, “The Siege”. So they can have a taste of how you really show political drama and thriller in fictional works

I’ll just take out the mechs, and make them actually fight the grunts, hand-to-hand, looking them straight into the eyes. And if they whines about the mechs, I’ll go for the powered exoskeletons that seems more believable and less resource hogging than 30 meters mechs. So not only they still technically have mechs (scaled down to human scale) but still being in constant danger when they are in the frontlines, especially when a tank division is on the loose.

I’m usually good about avoiding anime’s that make my brain feel numb. Unfortunately I can’t dodge this one…much like how our super agile gundams feel the need to jump into a ditch to avoid enemy fire. Trench’s became obsolete..oh, somewhere between the invention of the biplane and the tank…which was like what? 500 years ago in this timeline… -_-